GCSD Board of Education Meeting - June 3rd, 2025

001everybody else. I mean, Terry and I have our weekly phone calls that, you know, we hit on everything for about an hour um usually in the morning and it's it's one of the pleasures of my life. I thoroughly enjoy Terry. She's um she's going to be missed by our students, by our staff, by our Greece community. I mean, she's still going to stay involved. She's jumping on the audit committee is she's leaving. She's going to stay involved in Act for Education. She's in GEF the um the credit union. She runs the credit union. It's she's a tremendous asset to this community. I'm going to truly miss Terry Malor and I just want to thank her for everything she's done for Greece Central. Terry um I've had I've known Terry for a number of years um

002outside of this position. I can't thank you enough for the impact that you've had on me um just during this transition. Um, you've been such um, a support. You've been a listener when needed. You've offered advice in the way Terry offers advice. Um, and you've been somebody that I can rely on as a voice to to kind of navigate this transition. I can't put words into how um, grateful I am and how much um, you will be missed in as a board member, but I know that you're going to be on committees and all around. So, I know that we'll be seeing each other on a regular basis, but I'm just so grateful for you and what you've done for this district and for this board. Um, it words really can't explain that. So, thank

003you so much. And now we have a special guest star. our former superintendent would like to come up, Kathy Groundman, to say a few words about Terry. I'm like that annoying person that when I heard that tonight was Terry's last meeting, um I really wanted to come and address the board and Terry and just say a few words. So, thanks so much for indulging me and having me. It is certainly a privilege to stand here tonight and share a few thoughts about Terry Malure. Um, my mind when I thought of you leaving immediately filled with a ton of memories because we spent 10 years together. I vividly remember um being a new superintendent, this was 10 years ago, finding my way and working to get to know the board. One of my earliest and most

004telling conversations that I had with Terry was a morning at breakfast when she looked at me and said, "You know, I've always wanted to be a board member." Now, that is a declaration that is not often heard. Um um she had such a clear sense and purpose and pride in her voice, a deep understanding of the responsibility that she carried for the community. Over the years, that initial impression only deepened. It became so evident that um why Terry was and why she continues to be such a vital part of the district in our community. You see it in the way she interacts with our teachers and staff or with the teachers and staff, I should say. Such a genuine warmth and concern for all. You feel it in her support for students, always advocating not

005for some, but for all, from the littlest to graduates. You see it in her love for the community, embracing every facet, all the successes and the struggles with such an inclusive spirit. And you obviously get and see so clearly her belief in terms of the true power of public education. These aren't just words. They're actions that I've witnessed over and over again. Terry embodies the concept of walking the walk. Whether it be spending hours listening to concerned parents, attending student performances, community events, or advocating for resources, Terry was always present, always engaged. She has poured her heart and soul into making Greece better. as a vice president. Through my time here, Terry was an invaluable partner, similar to what Jeremy was saying. Um, and I would add a very good balance to Shawn. I had

006to say it. Um, she skillfully led committees, championed initiatives in the arts, CTE, uh, battled to make sure that we were providing work study and was a positive voice, such a positive voice for our LGBTQ plus students and staff. Happy Pride Month. Her commitment to community schools was foundational and she was a key member that designed both of the strategic plans that we've gone through recently. Her dedication extended beyond our district borders earning her the respect and recognition across the county. Her board service has truly been remarkable. But beyond all the accomplishments, and I could have gone on and shared so many other things, what I valued most about Terry was that I could trust her. As a superintendent, finding individuals you can rely on is crucial. Terry was always clear, consistent, fair, and balanced.

007While Terry's kindness is evident, some people may have called her too nice or kind. Please don't be fooled. She was far more than that. Her integrity and directness also define her. She isn't afraid to ask and have tough conversations, to offer honest feedback, and to hold people accountable in respectful ways. For a superintendent, a cabinet member, and ultimately anyone in our school district, that level of trust and advocacy and directness is necessary. Terry, I'm deeply grateful for the trust that you placed in me and for the environment of trust that you've helped cultivate in Greece. It allowed us to build the same foundation throughout the district. Thank you for your compassion, compassion, your inclusive nature and vision, your profound and lasting commitment to the Greece community. I know that you will continue to share your

008amazing gifts and talents um as you leave the board and continue to work in Greece. So, thank you so much. [Applause] If family would like to come up and do a picture. Stay there. We're going to bring everybody around and do a picture of the board. That's a lot of memory. Thank you. All right. Next up, over the last several years, every year the board of education, we created a board of education award. And the board of education award this year um was easy. Sometimes the choice is hard. We've given it to the police departments. We've given it to the fire departments. We gave it to Greece Olympia several years ago, their staff. And this year, the choice was never really easier. It's going to be Terry Malor is going to receive the board award

009from the Gree Central Board of Education for the 20 24-25 school year. Again, there's been so many things that former superintendent Grman said, superintendent Molen said. Terry's impact and legacy in Greece Central is going to be longstanding and the board recognized that. It was a unanimous choice to put you in as the board award winner and there was no question in anyone's mind that you deserve it. So on behalf of the Gree Central Board of Education, I'd like to present Terry Malor with the Board of Education Recognition Award June 2025. With great pride and gratitude, we want to thank you for all of your outstanding service, dedication, and commitment to serving these students, families, and the entire Greece community from 2013 to 2025. Congratulations, Terry. [Applause] [Music] All right, moving on. President Eerts, you're up.

010Seem to always find myself in this situation following impossible acts. So, um, thank you everybody. Brian Eberts, president of GTA, the Greece Teachers Association for those I haven't met. Um, just going to speak a little bit about somewhat somewhat of a summation of the year. It was recently teacher appreciation week and it was heartening to see so many positive messages of support for educators across our district. The challenges and stresses in the world of education, especially in the post-pandemic era, can be difficult to fully grasp unless you're in it all the time. That's why it meant so much to see our teachers and members recognized and appreciated. Thank you to our colleagues in the district and to our entire community for standing with us. We're also excited to announce that the recipient of this year's

011or the recipients of this year's GTA scholarships will be revealed soon. While they are not yet public, we invite you to visit our GTA website in the coming weeks to learn more. These scholarships are designed to support graduating senior seniors pursuing careers in education. To date, we've proudly invested over a quarter of a million dollars to help inspire the next generation of educators right here in Greece. Through our grow our own initiative and the educator pathways program in partnership with the Greece central school district, we are committed to building a strong sustainable pipeline of local students becoming future educators in our schools. And by the way, congratulations to all tenure recipients tonight. And please be aware that one of them received the GTA scholarship and is now an integral member of the Greece team and

012a former student in my fourth grade class. It wasn't because of me. Looking back at the month of May, we are proud to see strong support for our school budget. A successful community begins with a strong educational system. A successful community begins with a strong educational system, which I just said. and that success is only possible through collaboration, commitment, and shared values. We're grateful for the continued partnership between our union and the district, and we're optimistic about the years ahead. This is really large print. I'm still making mistakes. Yes, really. Additionally, thanks to Greece leadership, the board of education, and the greater Greece community for all the support of our students, staff, and community. We are committed to working with you all to continue positive work towards improving academics, safety, and student and family support.

013Finally, as we wrap up the school year, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of the Greece retirees. Your years of service, dedication, and unwavering support for our students, staff, and community have left a lasting legacy. We wish you all the best in this next chapter. You will always be part of the Greece education family. Thanks, and have a great night. Thank you, President Eerts. Dr. Henley representing Gassau. Thank you. And uh happy June. It's finally June out. Buildings across the district this month are very busy with year-end testing, concerts, gallas, moving up ceremonies, field days, new student orientations, graduations, and someone has to grade all those finals. I thought it would be appropriate to wrap up this year with a few thank yous as well. Thank you to the board of education

014for your tireless support of our schools. We could not do this work without you. Thank you to Superintendent Smalline and his cabinet for their guidance and foresight. The future of our district is bright. Thank you to Megan, Terry, and Silas for all of your work on the board. Your leadership, it has been inspiring, and we wish you all the best in the future. to the admins, teachers, support staff, bus drivers, facilities, and operations. We all worked as a team to give the best possible experience to our students. And finally, in the coming weeks, many of you will be standing on stages with approximately 900 of Greece's most recent graduates. I want you to reflect on this one thing as you shake those hands and see those smiles. We have chosen the best industry in the

015world. We provide memories, hope, love, and lifelong lessons to our students. And when they stand in the mirror with those gowns and think back to their experiences over their school careers, they will forever remember the faces that made it all possible. I leave you with a quote from my favorite guitarist ever, BB King. The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can ever take it away from you. Have a restful and relaxing summer. [Applause] Thank you, Dr. Henley. I couldn't convince Joe Sweatz to speak tonight, so we'll pass on Gus. And next up is Karen Caster. Welcome this evening, Karen from Teamsters. Thank you. Good evening. Uh for those who don't know me, I'm Karen Caster, business agent for Teamsters Local 118. I res I represent the members in facility ops including buildings and

016grounds, custodians, maintenance mechanics, garage mechanics, central office secretaries, food service and transportation. Um, I wanted to say thank you as the school year comes to a close to the board, Superintendent Smallen, and the cabinet for the dedication, support, and efforts to make Gree Central the great district that it is. whether it's behind the scenes, in the classroom, or in the community, you make a difference. Um, I want to also wish best wishes to Terry and Megan and Silas. Thank you for your time and uh commitment to the district and to the board. Um, I also want to mention that um please keep those families um in your thoughts and prayers who have recently passed, especially Excuse me. The Gleason family and prayers to Bill for a speedy recovery. Thank you. Have a great summer. Thanks,

017Karen. All right. Next up, we have our residents forum. I have three speakers signed up this evening for residents forum. And my first speaker this evening is Casey Bolson. Casey, um, first and second. I mean, is Casey here? She is. Okay, then why can't she talk? All right, I'll allow it. So, Brendan, you're up. Good evening, board members. Uh, president, superintendent. My name is Brendan Bolson, Greece, Athena, class of 99, and former Greece Central School District print shop dark room technician during the Raymond Page Superintendent era. I I appreciate that everybody's here ready for summer. Uh, unfortunately, I have something a little worse to cover. As many of you may know, uh, DEC has released their contamination results from behind the property along Island Cottage that's adjacent to Greece Arcadia High School and Middle School.

018Uh, right now, supposedly Greece is working with the DEC on this. I would highly, highly suggest that the school board be in contact with the DEC directly as well. Aside from the DEC's plans that show the contamination along here and the uh number of 110 over here is pretty urgent. We did our own independent uh study out in the woods out there and it's more inland than theirs. Um people will tell you that since we found two micrograms per liter that that's not much. The important thing to take back out of that information is that this was in surface water. It's nearly impossible for TCE to be in surface water and collected. If you go back there and look at the source of it, it looks like a hose spot that has not been turned

019off. It's flowing constantly. That means there is a large pocket under the ground behind the dead wooded area that uh I can leave this with you guys. The most important part about this right now is that site six is what we call it. This is uh out of all our tests, site six is what came up positive. the currently and luckily it's summer the grease Arcadia track team runs through there. They run directly over that spot. Everything that they are running through is the contamination. So, I know you guys are probably going to wait for Greece or DEC to do their own testing to be to the point of where you decide what your next steps are, but uh I I would highly highly suggest when uh school opens up this next season. Our neighborhood

020always has the track team come through there. Suggest that they come over to our street, we'll look out for them. Don't let them run through that contamination, please. Thank you. I'll leave the map up here for you. Casey. Okay. All right. And next up, I have Ryan Murphy. Did I see Ryan in here? Yep, there he is. Good evening, board members. Mr. uh Superintendent, Mr. Okay, just uh follow up a little bit with what Brendan was saying. I have, you know, sure you're all aware I've been emailing you updates on everything. You guys have the live file. That's everything that we have. It is updated immediately. Um, you know, Brendan suggested ensuring, and I told you this a month ago, ensuring that the track team doesn't run through that, you know, especially a little bit

021further south where they do run down by the apartments. It's, you know, borderline lethal amounts of chemicals down there. So, that absolutely has to be addressed. You know, I would also suggest to you that sooner or later te full-scale testing is going to be done uh by either whether it's the DEEC, whether it's the town whether given how the town of Greece operates, it's probably going to fall back on the residents to do it. But you guys don't want to be stuck in a situation where, oh wait, it's September and we just found out that 30 ft from our property there was dangerous amounts of toxic chemicals found. you know, I'd be more than willing to help get you the uh companies to do that, get you the contact information of the DEC companies, DC

022themselves that we've been talking to you, but you know, this is obviously s Superintendent K, it's your call. You guys are the ones that make the ultimate decisions. Uh, you know, provide the board with recommendations, then you vote. Being proactive is going to be a much much better move than being reactive and being stuck in a situation where you have to figure out what to do with a thousand kids. The main goal is keeping the neighborhood and the residents, the children safe. That's your job is to make sure all the kids that come to this school, spend time on this property, that are going to be here over the summer back there in that in those fields in summer camps are safe. And ignoring the issue, that's being negligent. Um, just as anformational point, um,

023our legal team is looking into this. They're taking appropriate steps, reaching out to potential testing agents to look into and see what the next steps for Gree Central should be. Um, I I take offense to the fact that you say we're being negligent because you have no idea what we've done to this point. So, I it's my time to talk. You had your turn, Ryan. You know, I so I take offense to the fact that you say the board or the Greece central school district is being negligent because we have taken steps. It's being looked at and we will the board will determine the proper course of action once we get the information from our team. All right, moving on to staffing 2.01. Can I move staffing to the table, please? Moved by Mr. Stencil,

024seconded by Mr. Bonagorio. Any comments, questions, or concerns on staffing? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Assistant Superintendent Larson, it's your time to shine. Thank you so much. So, I'm very excited to introduce four new administrators this evening. We will start off with assistant principal at Olympia, Miss Alexis Hamilton. Alexis began her educational journey at Sunni Empire State College, earning an associates degree in childhood development. She furthered her studies by obtaining a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's of science and education in school counseling from St. Bonaventure University. Committed to educational leadership, she completed a certificate of advanced study in educational administration with a focus on school building and school district leadership at Sunni Brockport. With a rich background as a school counselor and SEAL coach, Alexis finds immense

025fulfillment in witnessing students apply the skills she teaches to overcome barriers and navigate their own challenges and successes. She enjoys collaborating with educators to integrate to integrate social emotional learning and restorative practices into classrooms, providing professional development and modeling effective strategies that support students social and emotional growth, contributing to their overall academic success. Looking ahead, Alexis is dedicated to supporting students in reaching their full potential and collaborating with a dedicated team in Greece Central. Outside of her of her professional life, she serves as a dance dance coach, instilling discipline and teamwork in her dancers while engaging with the community. Alexis cherish cherishes the culture of majoret dancing and enjoys mentoring children. In her personal life, Alexis treasures quality time with her four children, making lasting memories through family vacations. One of her favorite quotes is

026quote, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela. Congratulations, Alexis, and welcome to Greece. Alexis, I'm going to make you come back up here. She You can You clearly have not watched the Gree Central board meeting. That should be part of the interview process from now on. Do you have any family here that you would like to have a picture taken with? Oh, yes. All right. Come on down and we're going to do a family picture. Then we're going to have the Olympia family come and do a picture with you and the um superintendent, the deputy superintendent and assistant superintendent Zafitz. Thank you. All right, one more. So for the other three, remember this. This could be your first test. Congratulations. All right, next up, our new

027assistant principal, Olympia, Miss Joelen Manetta. Joelen brings over 20 years of experience as an educator in the Rochester City School District. She began her teaching journey at East High School, working with seventh grade social studies students and AVID classes before transitioning to the School of the Arts, where she taught participation in government and 11th grade US history. Throughout her career, Joelyn has served as an instructional coach, department liaison, curriculum writer, and building leader intern. She is passionate about fostering student center instruct centered instruction, building inclusive school communities, and leading initiatives focused on equity and family involvement. She was instrumental in introducing the seal of civic readiness at Soda, reflecting her commitment to providing students with meaningful opportunities for civic engagement. Joelyn earned her BS in adolescent education from Sunni Asiggo, followed by an MS in

028international studies from St. John Fischer University and a certificate of advanced study and educational administration from Sunni Asiggo. Outside of work, Joelen enjoys watching her children, Jolie and Julian, participating in various activities including soccer, football, and school performances. Her favorite family tradition is an Italian Sunday dinner with her children and extended family cheering on their Buffalo Bills. Joelen would like to extend her heartfelt gratitude to the Greece Central School District for the opportunity to serve at Olympia. She looks forward to building strong connections, supporting staff, and partnering with families to ensure every student thrives. Congratulations and welcome to Greece. Do you have any family here? I do. Okay. There you go. [Applause] All right, next up our new assistant principal, Olympia, Miss Desiree Periscali. Desiree earned her bachelor's degree in English literature from Sunni Brackport,

029where she became duly certified in Brockport's education program, enabling her to teach English language arts and special education at the secondary level. She obtained her mers in literacy from Kenishious University and is currently pursuing her educational leadership certificate. Desiree was a student in Greece Central School District attending Westridge Elementary and Apollo Middle School and a proud graduate of Greece Olympia. She has lived in Greece and is the mother of her only son Leo, a Patty Hill bulldog, or excuse me, a future Patty Hill bulldog. Desire joined Greece Central in 2010 as a long-term substitute and progressed to a probationary position as an English teacher, spending 11 years teaching all secondary grades. She now serves as a teacher on special assignment, exploring the structural and organizational aspects of education while stepping into leadership roles. Desire's favorite

030part of her job is witnessing the growth of diverse students in their unique energy. She looks forward to continuing this journey as the assistant principal at Olympia. In her free time, Desiree is an avid shopper. You can often find her at Marshalls and reading. Most importantly, she cherishes her role as a mom to Leo who inspires her to embrace joy in everyday life. Desire is grateful for the unwavering support from her wife Liz, her four siblings, and her parents who exemplify the values of strong character and hard work. She acknowledges her mother for providing essential care for Leo, enabling her to fulfill her professional responsibilities. Desire is committed to empowering future leaders and is honored to serve as the assistant principal at Olympia. Congratulations, Des. family. There he goes. Thank you. [Applause] All right. And

031last, but certainly not least, assistant principal at Olympia, Miss Karen Prior. Karen brings over two decades of service to the Gree Central School District to her new role as Olympia assistant principal. She began her career at Arcadia Middle School in 2002 as an eighth grade science teacher and excuse me, and living environment teacher, a position she held for 18 years. For the past four years, she has served as a teacher on special assignment, focusing on tier one instruction and supporting the AVID program. Her academic background includes a bachelor of science degree from Sunni Jio, a master's degree in education from St. John Fischer University, and certifications in school building and district school district leadership from the University of Rochester. Passionate about student achievement and educator growth, Karen is most inspired by helping students become the

032best version of themselves, setting high expectations, and ensuring they have support, the support needed to reach them. In her new leadership role, she is excited to build strong relationships with students, staff, and families, foster an inclusive and positive school culture, and support teachers in their professional growth. She looks forward to making a meaningful impact both in the daily life of the school and its long-term success. Outside of work, Karen is married with three children, Eli, Leah, and Cale, and spends most of her free time coaching them in basketball and soccer and cheering at their games and competitions. Congratulations again, Karen. [Applause] Don't go anywhere. Can we have all four? Yep. All four, everybody. Come on. All right. All right. [Applause] And now a whole new Olympia team. It's not supposed to go short as the

033follow. Everybody [Applause] Okay. Can I have someone move the tenure appointments to the table, please? Moved by Mr. Stzel, second by Mr. Butler. Any comments, questions, concerns on the tenure appointments before you? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Now, I'm going to go a little bit out of order, and I have two um years of service awards I'd like to present to two of the board's employees. The first one is to Loren Mannheart for her 10 years of dedicated service to the Gree Central School District. Congratulations. And now for our only other employee, the superintendent of schools, Jeremy, did I wake you from your nap or um I want to congratulate you on your 20 years of service with the Gree Central School District. So congratulations [Music] And then next

034up, Superintendent Smolen, community schools update. I'd like to invite um Kelly Spudo. And that's it. Right. And Kelly. All right. And Kelly Flagler to Okay. Both Kelly's to come up. Um I might steal some of your thunder, but I I think it's important. One of the reasons we wanted to showcase our community schools update right now is um not only to share the wonderful work that's taking place across our our district and and across our whole county really um but I think it's important for the message to to get out to our public that that community schools um what it does is yes it helps support um the needs of our students but without community schools. What people need to understand is as a building principles and as teachers, we looked for support before there

035was community schools. We knew that these needs existed and those needs fell on us as classroom as classroom teachers, as assistant principles, as directors throughout the district. And what this does is it takes that work and now we have a team of people that can actually go and and look for that support for our students and our community and allows then the teachers to actually focus on the instruction in the classroom. Um so community schools does so much but it also does so much for us instructionally in the classroom and I think that's an important message for people to understand. So go ahead. Thank you. I I truly appreciate that because that's really the sentiment that we're um we're hoping to frame this presentation with because we know and we've seen this slide before. We

036have fewer students than in previous years, but the needs of our populations have steadily and continuously increased. So more students require specialized services, academic interventions, and social and emotional supports than ever before. And understanding these shifts is really critical to ensure that our resources align with the evolving needs of our students and community as they currently exist. We begin here as a reminder to frame the why um for community schools. Why the strategy is a critical component to the fabric of our work every day. It's often been described as the connective tissue ensuring that students and families have access to resources that meet their basic needs so that our children can walk into the classroom ready to learn and so that our teachers can do what they do best which is teach. So community schools

037is truly about connection and as superintendent Smalline has mentioned the strategy is rapidly expanding. There are over 900 community schools in New York State. Over half are outside of New York City, including many here in Monroe County. To put this into perspective, only five years ago, the Rochester City School District and the Greece Central School District were the only two districts that had community schools in Monroe County. We now have nine and are counting, continuously counting. In Greece, we continue to grow as well as you're aware. So currently 13 of our 18 schools are officially community schools, although every single one of our 18 campuses benefits from the strategy in terms of resources and staffing and access um to to basic needs essentially. Next year, both Pine Brook and Patty Hill will be joining the

038community schools family. And recently, Kelly Spurdo, Shelby Levitro, and I had the pleasure of joining the Pine Brook staff to share the good news, which was received with a round of applause because we, our staff know that the community schools strategy allows students and families to get what they need so that teachers can teach and students can learn. So, who are we? We have many of our community schools team members here this evening. The community schools team consists of 13 site coordinators in addition to parent coordinators at each campus. We have strategically added one to two new community schools each year. And outside of Greece Central, the team holds coveted leadership positions on the New York State or the Community Schools Coalition of Monroe County at the county level, the New York State throughway Coalition,

039and the New York State Community Schools Steering Committee. And last week, we also had the pleasure of bringing the community schools team from Arcadia High School, Middle School, and Buckman Heights to the National Conference, including one particularly impressive student board of education member, Mr. Silas Alvarez, who presented on behalf of the Institute of Educational Leadership. And while we're on the topic of Silas, I would be remiss not to mention that both him and his mother, Miss Louva Alvarez, were recently awarded the New York State Community Schools Network of Excellence and Powerful Student and Family Engagement Award. So, let's take a moment and please join me in a round of applause. Uh, at this time I'd like to ask Kelly to share and highlight some of the work her and her team have have uh taken

040off this year. Um, so if you know me, you know this wheel well because it's the mantra of everything we do. When we were at the national conference, we joked we should get tattoos of it on our arms so no one forgets. But really at the heart of community schools is that all students are flourishing and thriving school communities. And we do that through the six key practices that you'll see outlined throughout our presentation. Um, but really it's been the supportive infrastructure we've created as a district with board policy, including this in our strategic framework and our district comprehensive improvement plan that has really made our community school strategy successful. Okay. So research has showed us over and over again that kids who are engaged in expanded and learning enriched learning opportunities outside of the

041school day have better academic outcomes are more engaged in school and do better overall. This year we have 164 unique community schools elementary clubs. Um that's up from 109 last school year and we had more than 2300 kids participate in an afterchool club. So those could be things run by teachers, teaching assistants, um community partners. A few of those are highlighted on the slide, including girls on the run, rock band, um sports, play before the day, baking clubs, anything you can think of that kids are excited about and adults are excited about has turned into an afterchool club. We also received a New York State LEAPS grant for five years to make sure that the Boys and Girls Club could have an after-school program at Arcadia Middle School. So, this is for sixth grade students

042only and research has shown that the transition from elementary to school to middle school is a challenging time for kids and having them engaged in outside of school learning opportunities is helpful. So, our Boys and Girls Club staff along with many of our community schools team members staff this program outside of the school day. And if you don't have haven't been there yet, you should definitely go after school one day. It is the most fun ever and you will definitely engage in some of the activities. This summer, we're starting our fourth year of summer fun camps. So, when we did our community schools needs survey several years ago, families said that free and lowcost activities for their kids in Greece didn't exist at the scale they needed them. And so, we have been providing free

043summer fun camps for our elementary kiddos. This year, we have three different themes. Exploring the natural world, Let's Get Messy, and around the world. We also added middle school camps because we found that kids in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade didn't have many things to do in the summer besides play on their phones. And so, this got them out of the house and doing fun activities. And then this summer, we also added a new prek and K stories, crafts, and play so parents and kiddos can drop in at the ELC, get to know the school, and have a softer transition into school. as well as the Boys and Girls Club will be offering an art um middle school program as well. As you know, student and family engagement is really central to community schools and

044so we have worked very hard to make district-wide events. We have been doing our fall family fest and spring family fest with over a hundred people participating each and every time. Last year we had our second annual back to school bash. I told everyone that our kind assistant superintendent were running to Walmart in the store for me trying to get supplies when we ran out of them within the first hour of the event. Um, we had so many families there. It was really incredible to see everyone show up for the activities. And then we are doing a lot of building based events too where our community schools team is working with the instructional staff to find fun ways to support the academics outside of the school day. Um, we're very strategic about naming our events

045something super fun like a glow party where you're actually learning site words and vocabulary while you're scootering around with glow sticks in your hands. Um, Kelly Flaggler mentioned that we have parent coordinators in every building working part-time really supporting the work of our community schools team. We also are lucky to have bilingual parent coordinators and it has been incredible at all of our events to see how many families when English is not their first language are showing up to the events with the bilingual parent coordinators and getting toured around the event, hearing what's happening and getting really engaged in school. Um, our parent coordinators are also hosting unique different parent exchanges through all of the buildings, whether it's during a school dance or while parents come to have pasta and paint with the principal and

046our staff. just finding ways to engage parents and hear their voice because we know how important that is. Um we also have opened up many of our committees either at the district level or the school level to include parents. We have more than 20 parents participating on district level committees, more than 20 on building level um committees as well. And this year we had our second year of our parent advisory leadership council um where members of our district improvement team safety and security and college and career readiness have come and talked to the parent advisory council so that they can learn more about what's happening in the district and inform others and we are really excited to also have parents on our district community schools advisory committee really helping us to support and scale the

047work across the district. Um, last year Long Ridge was one of our few schools to have a student advisory team. They decided they were going to plan their end of the year celebration and they got really engaged. They talked with finance, with risk management. They found out that you cannot plan a $10,000 event for the end of the school year, which was very disappointing. Um, but they learned how to plan events like we do in our school district. And now we have a ton of student advisory committees. So, you can see all the schools there. Buckman Heights, Craig Hill, the ELC. Our youngest kiddos, kindergarteners and first graders, are a part of leadership clubs, learning really how to use their voice. They're doing fundraising, focus groups, planning events, like I said, and volunteering. And it's

048been incredible to see our kids really coming together and shining. Um, our neighborhood navigation center, which is run by Kaylee Cure, has been an incredible support to our families. This is a grant-f funded program that connects their families who are seeing um housing instability or other needs that gives them a place to go to get their needs met. They've had over 250 families come in. 155 of those families have joined their care team for long-term support. And we have a variety of different initiatives with ESL um charitable foundation, the Greece Rotary, Open Door Mission, and others to support our families. And one of the programs, our community cares initiative, we just shared that 94% of the families who joined that initiative have stabilized their housing, which means their kids can stay in their school and

049continue to focus on their academics and not miss any classes due to the housing situation in their household. Um, we also know that since CO that the mental health needs and social emotional learning needs of our kids have grown and become more evident. And as a parent, I know that I have to if I have to pick my kiddo up from school at noon, go to the doctor, try to get them back to school and get to work, it's at least a half a day to get to an appointment. So, we've been working very carefully to colllocate some of these services within our schools. Families are still part of their child's care team, but instead of having to drive all over town for appointments, they can do them at the school site. And if families

050are interested, they can also collaborate with the school staff. So, the strategies kids are learning outside of the school day, they can use in school as well. and we just finished our last mental health first aid training where 14 parents from across the district were trained in mental health first aid. Um we've talked about this before, but creating a culture of safety, belonging, and care is really important for our students. Having caring adults in their lives who show up matters and so we have a variety of different mentoring programs for our students. primary project is for our youngest kiddos, kindergarten through 2 grade, who might have some mild school adjustment difficulties. So, the kiddo who's holding on to mom's leg and doesn't want to leave for the first two weeks of kindergarten or the kiddo

051who's too shy to speak out in class will then get support from another adult to build those skills and be ready to learn. We have generation 2 mentoring that gives weekly mentoring to kindergarten students at Unelain and the ELC. So, every week they get 30 minutes of undivided attention with an adult. And then we have our high school students mentoring our elementary school students between Odyssey and Longidge, Olympia and Longidge, and then Arcadia High School in Lakeshore. And then we are very happy with our Bob Johnson mentoring program where kids are actually going to Bob Johnson learning skills. It's not just about car sales. It's about the accounting end of it. It's the mechanic. It's every single part of the business learning about that and the kids are getting jobs and getting paid over the

052summer and really building their skill sets. Okay. And we also have district-wide supports for families. We know that with prices going up and inflation, a lot of people aren't able to meet their basic needs. And so our district pantry has seen over a thousand families this school year to get um groceries and things they need. And then our clothing closets are also seeing families as well. There's a flyer linked here telling you the hours. And our district pantry is open over the summer. I'll let Kelly speak a little. So yeah, I think it's fair to say the community schools team has been a little busy this year. Um, you also know in Greece that we love wildly important goals and I want to bring us back to the intention of the community school strategy which

053is to improve learning outcomes for students. The community school site coordinators all year have received ongoing professional learning uh designed to bridge explicit connections between their work and supporting increasing student achievement. This school year, community site coordinators at the elementary level have implemented wigs using the 4DX model intended to improve learning outcomes. And at the secondary level, there's been wigs uh that have been developed to support DIP goal three around improving improving student behavior in addition to expanding access to college and career readiness. So, as we continue on this path of coherence, uh we're also excited to share that for the first time ever, community site coordinators will now be at the table with school improvement teams this July at summer leadership academy. This way, we can ensure that the community school wigs and lead

054measures for the 2526 school year are in alignment with SC schoolbased uh improvement plans. Um, so as a district improvement team, we've been very careful about um, keeping track of our wildly important goals and making sure that we're meeting all the metrics throughout the year. So every month we're checking in with our teams and seeing if they're meeting their lead and lag measures. And this chart shows you that as of May, every single one of our community school site coordinators has completed at least one of their lead measures, if not more than one. and everyone is on track to finish all of their lead measures and meet their wildly important goals by the end of June. So, this shows just some points of pride. The elementary community schools coordinators have been really strategic about using

055the key practices and figuring out ways to support the academics in their building. So, they're sitting in on professional learning community me. They're meeting with their math and reading interventionists. They're talking with the principles every two weeks to figure out how they can really improve academics and they are living and breathing their goals. Um, so I'll go over some of these and I'm worry that some people may shout out and tell me my numbers aren't updated enough because it was two weeks ago and I've seen fresher numbers. So Autumn Lane, 93% of students have completed a take-home math kit. So when you're a classroom teacher, the last thing you have time for is to create fancy creative math kits to take home back and forth because you're worried about daytime instruction. So Amberly Buck has

056created interactive math kits that she brought into the classroom has shown kids and almost 100% participation at Buckman Heights. They have been participating in a math tutoring program after school where the math interventionist and Ricky work together to identify the kids who are tier 2 and tier three who need extra support at Craig Hill. And I know this number is old too. 72% of the students have participated in math hallway challenges. So, as they're walking down the hall, there's a question, they get a sticker, and they try to find the right answer and talk and dialogue about it with their peers and their classroom teacher. At the Early Learning Center, Amber has hosted and co-f facilitated four Westy University events to increase family engagement and to ensure families are there. She has three different touch

057points with each family before the event. So, they might get a phone call home, they might get a flyer in the car line, they might get something in the weekly newsletter, but so it's not a, "Oh, I didn't see that." We make sure we reach out to them three unique ways. At Homes Road, they piloted literacy pilots in one classroom where the literacy volunteers, sorry, in the classrooms and they came at least 10 times for an hour each to work with the kids and they're planning to expand that next year. At Lakeshore, they had two out of school events specifically focused on reading and math. And at Long Ridge, they're partnering with the math interventionists to create take-home math activities over the school breaks where tier two and tier three students specifically are targeted to

058complete those activities so that there's no learning loss over breaks. And then at our secondary schools, as we said, we've had a hyperfocus on behavior. Um, but a lot about of that is attendance, getting kids to class on time, in the room, ready to learn. And so they've done a great job looking for tier 1, two, and three interventions. And um our district social worker just told me that Arcadia High School had the most stabilized attendance based on the tier one supports that have been offered there. So every month there's a unique incentive, whether it's popcorn, hot cocoa, uh staff and student basketball game, just finding ways for kids to get excited about being in school. At Odyssey, they're doing monthly engagement events to involve all the kids in focus groups to see what the

059kids really want. At Olympia, they have the Spartan Square where kids are now going in volunteering during their free classes and earning work study hours and many of those students are now working for us this summer. And Arcadia Middle School is also doing incentives for attendance. So, moving on to next year, as um Kelly Flaggler said, our site coordinators will be at the full week-long summer leadership so that they're involved in the decision- making around the school improvement plan goals and how they can support them. Again, every elementary community schools coordinator will have a wildly important goal around academics. The secondary site coordinators will have a goal focused on attendance in October. Look out for our updated needs and assets surveys for families, staff, and students so we can really hear from everyone and get

060stakeholder input about what they need and want. And our third back to school bash is August 25th. We have outgrown all of our elementary sites, so we're holding it at Olympia this time. Thank you, Mr. Stencil. This is going to be more of a comment than a question. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, first off, I just want to like congratulate the both of you, your entire team. This is nothing short of a miracle what you guys have pulled off. I remember being with you at the meeting that I have first attended about two years ago. And just to see the progress of what you guys have built with all the partners, all the stakeholders and your team is nothing short of just like I said, a miracle. It's really impressive. So, you get my praise

061and my kudos. Um, I did not know that you were incorporating mental health first aid. I think that's amazing. I would love to see more of that, not only between the staff, parents, um, even towards students. And for those on the board who don't know, um, when you're trained in mental health first aid, you're not diagnosing people. You're just trained to understand and see the signs and symptoms so that you can then have a conversation and refer the person to the service that they may uh, or may not need. So, it's like an equivalent to needing CPR essentially for for a heart attack or whatnot, but for a mental health crisis. So, I love that you're doing that. I think that's amazing. Another thing, and I I'll tie Mark Fleming into this. Um, we just

062went over the DIP, the the third part there related to behavior and whatnot. Like my brain was just lighting up when they were talking about it and connecting the dots. I think this is awesome how community school strategy can merge perfectly with the DIP and really interact to better students lives. I I think it's great cuz I'm putting on my social work hat and I'm thinking like you need to not only meet people where they're at for those who need it, but you also need to give a leg up for those in need, not a handout. And I think that's what you guys are doing and I love it. So I'm really I'll just close with this. I'm really excited to see what you do next. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Lake. Um I reiterate

063what um Jordan said. In fact, I I hit him and said, "I hope you're impressed." She did. But I'm on the advisory committee and the last meeting we had um I think I should get a stipen for it because No, I am serious. I We worked so hard in two hours. I needed a nap when we finished. Um, but I don't know. I mean, she's like a drill sergeant, but I mean, at we had these buckets and these ideals and and at the end we narrowed them down to like four or five things and it was just like your head was my head was spinning but I'm old so. But thanks brother. Thanks uh for the report. You guys know what big what a big fan I I am of the community school strategy. I

064had one really specific question. You talked about the neighborhood navigation center which I think is such a cool resource and you mentioned that it's grant funded. Is that local foundation money? You mentioned ESL charitable foundation. Is that who funds it or? Um so it's really blending and braiding of several different grants. So we have funds through open door mission, the Rotary ESL charitable foundation together now did some of the initial funding and then the Boseis coaster supports it as well. Great. Thank you, Vice President Farmer. So I just wanted to follow up on the navigation center. Um, it stabilizes kids, it stabilizes families, it stabilizes schools and our community when we can keep kids in schools without having to go from here to there to everywhere. Um maybe a couple years ago, I was on

065that neighborhood site and I saw a um mother who had posted needing um housing and I took a screenshot and I sent it to Kelly and she goes, "Well," and we had no idea who this person was. She goes, "I don't, you know, I don't know. I and I'll try, but as Mary was saying, she found these people. She found this family and she got them housing and they were stabilized. So I can't say enough for the n the navigation center, the two of you working together, I would imagine. So it is um excellent that we have that in Greece and and keep our schools and our kids and our families stable. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Um, just a update on board member Maloney. He is out of surgery and doing well.

066All right, moving on to 4.02 security screening update. Superintendent Smalline. I'm going to ask uh Deputy Superintendent Mark Fleming to come up and as he travels to the microphone, I have to publicly acknowledge uh the work that Mark has put in to the implementation of of these systems. And when I say the implementation, I'm not just talking about setting them up and making sure the structures are in place. I'm talking about the time that he's taken to work with the staff, our security team, to develop family nights for families to come in to each of the schools and have the opportunity to stand up in front of everybody and take on questions so that people could have a full understanding of what um these um this system does and what it doesn't do. um he

067has single-handedly um led this charge um among everything else that I asked him to do. Um I couldn't be more proud, Mark, of the work that you've done with this to make sure it was um implemented the right way and people had a full understanding of it so that it could um be successful, which we're seeing right now. So, I just I personally want to thank you for your work with this. Uh thank you, Superintendent Smalling, for those generous comments. Uh I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the support of the board uh the cabinet uh the security team uh Casey Vocal and his team Eric Hughes is here tonight uh and uh the the staffs at the school and that's not just our GTA members but all of our units. Uh it

068has been um a team effort. So thank you for those comments and thank you to everyone who's helped with uh this effort. Uh good evening everyone. I just want to give you an update with uh with regards to our safety screening system uh and let you know where we stand with the implementation of that system. At this point, as you all know, our number one priority in this district is safety. Uh and we do take a multi-layered approach within this district to ensure that all students, staff, and family members are safe uh on all of our campuses. I'm not going to go through all of the uh bullet points that you see here, but as I said is a multi-layered approach from personnel systems, structures, the supports that we wrap around students. We use a

069multi-layered approach to ensure everyone's safety. And as part of that multi-layered approach, we have now implement implemented a safety screening system. This is not a traditional metal detector. Instead, it uses advanced technology to identify prohibited items such as firearms, knives, explosives. Uh, and we're really not unique uh here in the county to the use of these systems. We see them imple implemented uh in our airports of course, but also in healthcare facilities, in government buildings, in stadiums, uh all across our our county, even amusement parks as well have started to utilize these systems right here in Monroe County. We are partnering with two different companies who work together. That's MIS security and Lenev systems. So we didn't bring these two companies together. Uh they have a history of working together to provide a comprehensive uh

070safety screening system. So let's start with MIS security. They are the manufacturers of the Ronin system. A little difficult to make out in this picture here, but to the right there you can see two towers or ballards with green lights on on them. These are batterypowered ballards, very light and easy to move, and students pass through this system. I'll give you a more detailed description in some later slides, but essentially they can be calibrated to a setting which will help indicate whether or not contraband is being brought into our buildings. Lenv creates uh and manufactures the bag scanner. You can see a picture of that on the right. This uses a combination of X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence. Uh as you can see here, the screen shows an X-ray image of the contents of a

071bag as that bag goes through the bag scanner. Uh this is an image provided by the company and and it's a little hard to see on the screen here, but the artificial intelligence highlights any contraband that could be in that bag. So in the example here provided by the company, you can see a red box that's put around a firearm uh around a knife and the AI tells the operator the percent likelihood uh that that is in fact a dangerous item. This slide here uh is an image our two images from our own tests. So as you can see they're very exactly what the company provided to us. I want to be clear these are not uh bags or musical instruments from our own students. These are items that we created and put them through.

072So we're not showing the contents of any of our students possessions. Uh in the image on the left you can see a backpack uh the oversized Stanley of course which is ubiquitous uh amongst uh teenagers today. In the lower leftand corner there's another little object there. That's our yonder pouch with a phone that's inside of it. I'll talk more about the cell phone policy uh later in the presentation. On the right hand side you can see a violin case and uh my finger there is pointing out a small little boxed item and that is a vape. Uh so in this particular instance, the AI did not put a box around the vape. That's because there's lots of different kinds of vapes and the algorithm is still learning. So the company has let us know that

073as uh they continue to develop their software, the AI will get stronger and be able to identify different kinds of vapes. But I wanted to highlight this because it does stress the importance of the human operator in being able to identify contraband. And you can clearly see that an item like this is going to appear as it goes through the bag scanner. So again, the bag scanner and the Ronin are paired together. Here you can see in this image on the far right hand side where the table is just behind that uh is the bag scanner. On the left hand portion of the picture you can see uh the two ballards. This is at Arcadia Middle. So let me talk to you a little bit about the floor plan at Arcadia and how the flow

074has worked so far. So, this has been implemented at Arcadia Middle and Arcadia High. What you're looking at right here is the floor plan for Arcadia Middle. Students for both the high school and the middle school enter through this particular entrance. So, they begin in the upper leftand corner where that yellow dot is. They line up outside of the front doors. They then proceed in through that first set of front doors through the vestibule and then they split off as they enter the next set of doors in the vestibule to the two different lines that we have set up. You can see on the uh both the left and the right we have the red rectangles. That's the lenv scanner. When the student arrives at that scanner, they place their bag on the scanner. They

075also place their yonder pouch which has the phone inside of it locked on the scanner as well. Everything that they have, their keys, their Chromebook, bulky metal items, goes into the book bag. So everything into the bag except for that locked yonder pouch with the phone inside it that goes in separately through the bag scanner. The student then proceeds through the Ronin uh which if they have nothing on them uh they're going to pass through really really quickly. They then go to the other end of the bag scanner. They pick up their bag and proceed on to class. If the Ronin goes off or if there's something of concern in one of the bags, the students then go to one of the secondary screening rooms for the lane on the left. There's a classroom immediately

076to the students right that they would duck into for a secondary screening for the lane on the right straight ahead into the main office. We have a secondary screening room there for the students to be screened again if there's an item of concern. So we began this implementation uh a couple of weeks ago first at Arcadia Middle and Arcadia High School. They've been using a different system for well over a year. That particular system was not giving us the results that we desired. uh Arcadia was a good place to then start uh the Ronin and the Lenev. On May 19th, uh that Monday, we used the two different systems uh to kind of get the students used to the brand new one and then we went full implementation starting on the 20th with support from

077staff from MIS, from Lenev, and from the district. Uh on May 23rd, that Friday, we had the uh outside consultants back off uh and the Arcadia team had support from the district. And then that following Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, the team did the full implementation. And when I say the team, that is the Arcadia staff. So no support from the district. They are now running this on their own. Uh, of course, you may remember from the roll out of our earlier system at Arcadia. We had some long lines. Uh, some parents, I think, that were frustrated with how long it took school students to get into school. We of course our primary goal is to have students in all classes on time. This chart here shows that we've been able to speed up

078the process pretty rapidly. So that first arrival time uh on May 20th uh was about 7:38. We had all the students in and you can see that we made uh progress. You can see a little bit of an uptick on the 27th when the school team was doing their own implementation. Uh but by May 28th we had all the students in by 7:20 7:21. So they really picked up very quickly how to use the system, how to get into the building quickly and efficiently without compromising uh the tools uh that the system provides. We have found this to be exceedingly effective and the feedback from staff and from students has been uh positive so far. We are detecting contraband with the use of this lighters, vapes. Uh today, and I'll talk more about the roll

079out at the other schools, but today at Olympia, uh we found a pepper spray canister. So, we are we are preventing contraband from getting into uh the building. We're also seeing students that are depositing items outside of the building because they don't want to be caught with it. Uh and they're finding out that the system works. They're finding out that out really rapidly. Uh, I think as we all know, uh, there is now a statewide, uh, distraction-free school mandate from Albany, uh, that students may not use cell phones in, uh, schools in New York State, uh, from the beginning of school until the end of school. We, of course, have had our own policy since the fall of 2022. And we are seeing increased compliance, a lot of compliance with that particular policy as a

080result of this system. It is now far easier to ensure that students are putting their phone and any other electronic device like a smartwatch or earbuds into that locked yonder pouch. Uh to just give you an example here, you can see the number of phones that were confiscated at Arcadia Middle uh by the administrative staff because they did not have a yonder pouch. Principal Jones and his team confiscated 200 phones yesterday in their first roll out. I received a text uh from a very veteran uh teacher at Olympia last night, unsolicited, uh who said, "I have to tell you that today's one day roll out at Olympia far um increased the culture in this building with regards to cell phone use." He said, "I only had to confiscate one phone and for the rest of

081the day, I did not see any students with earbuds, with phones." Principal Jones himself told me that when he walked into the cafeteria, he could hear kids talking to one another. And I can't believe I'm telling you that that's an oddity, but it is. Uh, and so already we're seeing, uh, really a marked improvement as a result of this system. So, when it comes to implementation, uh, Arcadia is in their third week. Olympia began yesterday. We only screened about 15% of kids. Today, we screened all of them. Full transparency, it took a while to get the kids into the building. They have not had a screening system at all olympi at Olympia. So they went from 0 to 100 today. They started entering the building at 751, excuse me, 651. By 7:44 we had all

082the students in the building. So I am exceedingly confident that that number will drop uh pretty quickly as they become used to the system. Uh in September we will roll out have a staggered roll out at Athena, at Odyssey, and at Phoenix. And that's the current update. Any questions? Board member Malar. Um I also want to thank Mark. I had the opportunity to go to the parent meeting at Arcadia and um the a large portion of the administrators from Arcadia were there as well. They were very happy to answer questions parents had. Um, and the ridiculous things we see on social media like causing cancer and things like that were easily distracted and I'm so pleased that it is moving smoothly and that um that picture of the cell phones tells us that we needed

083to do the next step. So, thank you. Thank you, Miss Miller. Mr. Stzel, thank you, Mr. President. I really wanted to echo what Terry just said, but also what Superintendent Smalline said. I was there with Mary last night at at the presentation. I think you hit it off the, you know, home run to you, the team, um, Principal Jones, and and everybody that was there. I think it was a great informative and transparent presentation, which is exactly what we as board members would want to see. And I I think the community members that were there were satisfied from what I saw with the exception of one person but that you know people are going to agree to disagree but I I think you answered all the questions the concern about the cancer thing. We had

084the people from uh Lenev and all of them there speaking about it and you know addressing their concerns that there's no radioactivity that is emitted from those devices. So, you know, just a big hats off to you and your team for your professionality and just, you know, going out there and addressing it with the community, putting people's minds at ease related to this cuz this can be scary. I can speak for my daughter. My daughter was terrified when she first heard this. I sat and watched the video with her. We talked about it a lot back and forth. I see in the presentation that there's mental health supports for kids who need it as they go through the process. And we, you know, one of the things I campaigned on was safety. And let me

085just say, I think this may not solve every single problem, but it is another tool in the toolkit of safety that makes Greece even better. And I think over time we'll get used to this process and it'll just be another day. And so I appreciate the way you've rolled it out and and tried to um uh better Greece as a result. Thank you, Mr. Stenzel. Thank you, Mr. Bonagorio. Thank you. Um I'm going to be a little bit of a broken record on that. So I was at the same meeting that uh Miss Mallalo was at. U Yeah. Um and uh it was a tough meeting. There were a lot of parents who were frustrated, had a lot of questions, concerns, and you did a wonderful job of addressing them. uh this the staff there

086um Miss Rosiniac uh you you all put yourselves out there to address the questions and uh when I left you were still in conversation with people so was uh she and u and others I I think I'll bring it back to uh Superintendent Smallen's u partners in progress thing. I think it's it's set a tone for a kind of openness that I think is really appreciated and uh that that process engaging with people in in honest conversation when there are challenges is is helpful. So yeah, thank you. Thank you for doing that. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Great. Thank you. All right, moving on to 5.01 01 acceptance of the district responses to the internal audit report. So move that moved by Mr. Stencil, seconded by Mr. Butler. Any comments, questions, or concerns on that,

087Miss Lake? I just appreciated the um steps that were taken to remedy it so that it would not happen again. So that was good to see. And I spoke to the chair person of the audit committee today and they said it came through the audit committee. Um and the audit committee fully supports this. Anything else? All right, seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Moving on to the tax certary settlement refund. Can I Sony move that to the table, please? Moved by Mr. Butler, second by Miss Malor. Any comments, questions, concerns on this? Seeing none, all those in favor that passes 8 to zero. Move on to 5.03 fund balance transfer to the capital fund. Can I move that to the table, please? Move by Mr. Butler, second by Mr. Stencil.

088Any comments, questions, concerns on this? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Moving on to the consent agenda. Can I Sony move the consent agenda to the table, please? Moved by Miss Lake, seconded by Mr. Butler. Any comments, questions, concerns on the consent agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor. It passes 8 to zero. Moving on to 8.01, the science core instructional materials update. Can I sign move that to the table, please? Moved by Mr. Stencil, second by Mr. Butler. Any comments, questions, concerns on this? Mr. Bonagoro? I um just a quick comment and uh and maybe a couple questions. Um one, I I I want to congratulate the team on uh on putting all of the effort into it. Um there's having a having a consist a consistent um uh

089curriculum in place for for all of our our staff in the subject area is a really valuable thing. Um and uh I think that that really will ultimately help us maintain standards and and um improve our outcomes. So that's all that's all u really appreciated and I know that we've got we've got that kind of work to do in other areas uh in in other disciplines as well. So I appreciate that and I want to want to thank the team for that. Um I am wondering if we haven't had uh reports as we have had with literacy and math. Uh we've had assessment updates periodically and I'm wondering if we will be getting that as we roll out the uh the new science curriculum. Sure. So um thank you for that question. We there will

090be summitative state assessments associated with both the earth and space science and the biology. Uh we haven't seen those yet because it's the first time that we'll be um really implementing this new instructional resource and the exams uh will be coming. Um and those summitive assessments, the state assessments will have a greater level of understanding um in terms of how the instructional resource is uh relative to the state standards. So it'll be our first implementation of it. Um so we'll have that data and then in addition to that with the PLC work that we're doing through the school improvement planning process over time teams uh in buildings and teachers throughout the district will be able to work together uh to create common formative assessments um that the development of that process will take time. So

091um and and to broaden it a little bit um we also have the uh the curriculum review process and the district uh many of you serve on those committees. It consists of um school administrators, district administrators, teachers, parents, uh board members. It's really a shared stakeholder uh group that is charged with the oversight of the implementation of the preK through 12 standards. Um and that occurs all the time. It's a six-year cycle process. Um, and we are currently in um year we'll we'll expect to have evaluation data in three years uh in terms of full implementation of this new instructional resource um and then there'll be a full year of eval program evaluation uh to determine the efficacy. It doesn't mean that it's going to be four years until we tinker with uh some of

092the work because that work occurs during vertical uh teams and content area teachers through the PLC process that happens just on a smaller scale. So I don't know if that answers your question. Okay. Yes, it does. Thank you. I appreciate that and appreciate all the work you've put into it. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Butler? Um, I noticed in the uh um the uh recommendation and approval form there's like ratings that show how how the reviewers rated the uh um the curriculum. And there was one uh um that had uh one of the different levels of review was that it includes resources for English as uh new language and special education students. And that was like it was like like chemistry. My it was like my report card. it was when it got to

093chemistry, right? So, everything else was fives and fours and then we had a a three on that one. And I just wondered if there are ways that we can compensate for that in our um in our implementation of this so that our ENL students and our special education students have the resources that they need. Yeah. So, as part of that process, and we actually have um one of our teachers, uh not to put you on the spot, Mr. Espazito, he was um on the the team through the evaluation process. I asked him to join tonight. Those are things that um those are areas that the committee considers in terms of um the how the materials are able to be differentiated to meet the needs of diverse learners. Um and so that was part of the

094process. One of the things that the committee um was really that was really appealing about the new visions resource was that the materials are not only 100% aligned with the new standards, but that they're also um in editable format. So, um, oftentimes we receive resources that are, um, in PDF or other ways that they can't really be adapted, but this is, um, an opportunity for teachers to be able to modify as they're implementing to meet the needs of their their students on, you know, whatever their needs are. So, I don't know if Mr. Espazito, if there's any other pieces that you would add to that in terms of um, meeting the needs of our diverse learning population. I'm going to make you grow up. It's very fluid and it's ready to make it a lot

095to do with relationships that each individual teacher has with those kids and what their individual needs are. And there's nothing really in the curriculum that we liked that really said, "Oh, hey, there's a little package for our students in Greece." and we step back as teachers and we know what our kids need and we know our kids need special. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. was like I really appreciated being able to go in and look at the materials and I just plan to go in and kind of shuffle through them and I am not very good at science but I thought I could look at titles and feel like I've done something but to meet Todd and Audrey there who spent time talking about answering questions that was great and then a followup with you. So,

096um I feel that everything was done for us to be able to understand um everything that you you've done. And looking at the schedule, it's like, you know, you did everything um to ensure it's the best program available right now. So, thanks. I appreciate that. I'll be sure to share the feedback back with the team. Anything else? Mr. Bonagorio, Mr. Mr. Butler's question reminded me of another aspect of it. So we we have this is in PDF format. When we give this to our students to use, is it uh is it given as PDF as a PDF on on their Chromebooks or do we make a printed out? It's an editable format for um for teachers. When students receive it, they'll be receiving a version that they're not going to be editing from what the

097teacher had created. But is it is it only in digital format? That's the that's the real question. Yeah, good question. So, um we it it is available online um in digital format and we are intending to um to print the instructional manuals for students through our print shop which um there's some cost details that are associated with that. And that was another added bonus that um because comparatively speaking to the other resources that were reviewed, this was fiscally extreme extremely responsible. Great. I'm I'm glad that it's not just in in a digital format that they actually can have something to mark up, read, you know, they'll have hard copies. Yep. Cool. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Moving on to the May 21st, 2024 absentee

098ballot disposal. Can I so move that to the table, please? Moved by Mr. Stutzel, second by Miss. Any comments, questions, concerns on that? Seeing none, all those in favor? Oh, sorry. Did anyone um have a problem with them or challenge them in any way or anything? No. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Moving on to 10.02 amendment to the superintendent's employment agreement. Can I sign move that to the table please? Moved by Miss Malor, seconded by Mr. Butler. Any comments, questions, concerns on that? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 8 to zero. Moving on to superintendent comments. Superintendent Smolen. Okay. I do have some words that I've written down, but uh before I get to that, I just wanted to extend my

099deepest condolences to the family of Jim Gleason um during the incredible during this incredible difficult time. I also want to recognize the tremendous grief felt by his fellow transportation and bus garage teammates, the students and families that he faithfully served each day, and the many others throughout our district who had the privilege of knowing him. My our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and his friends. So as we come to a close of the 202425 school year, I want to take a moment to express my deep gratitude for the support collaboration and collective commitment that has defined this year. This was a year of transition not just for me personally as I stepped into the role of superintendent but for many of our cabinet and different and uh district office leaders as well.

100And with change often comes uncertainty. But that uh but thanks to the steady support of our board of education and the dedication of our incredible staff, this transition has been marked not by disruption but I believe by momentum and together we have taken important steps forward in the service of our students. So across our districts we've seen uh the impact of intentional collaborative work. The guiding coalition with its focus on strengthening professional learning communities has helped us lay a stronger foundation for instructional alignment and shared shared responsibility for student learning. We began full implementation of our new literacy programed in the science of reading. That's work that required commitment, flexibility, and partnership from teachers and leaders alike. Our community schools strategy continues to grow, deepening our connections with families and meeting the needs of the

101whole child. We've expanded our shared decision-making structures at every school, ensuring that the voices of staff, students, and families are part of how we move forward. And across all departments, whether it's teaching and learning, student services, special education, transportation, finance, or human resources, our teams have continued to show what it means to lead with purpose and with heart. This year has reminded me that leadership is never a solo endeavor. It is about building trust, empowering others, and staying rooted in our shared mission, which is to ignite learning, expand opportunity, and cultivate trust. Thank you to the board of education for your vision and encouragement. Thank you to our staff for your professionalism, passion, and care. And thank you to our community for believing in what we can accomplish together. There is much more ahead and

102I'm excited for what we will continue to build together in the years to come. Thank you all. Thank you, Superintendent Smalline. Board member Alvarez, you're up. Um, okay. So, I want to express my um heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to both Miss Terry Mallure and Miss Megan Farah for being phenomenal people who consistently have the best intentions for all students in our district. Um, you provided you both provided me with new perspectives that I can use for my own future and um for the many many others, especially for young females in our district who look up to such amazing women. Though you both will be missed, knowing that you will both continue to be phenomenal people and role models for the young females in our district who inspire to be just like you is definitely heartwarming.

103And on behalf of the students in our districts, I would like to just say thank you for all that you have done and know that our next or that next uh that the next board or group of leaders will be lucky to have you both. Um last month, May 23rd, the superintendent's advisory council hosted our second annual student leadership summit and it was definitely a huge success. Um all students from all high schools uh including Phoenix were given the opportunity to give their feedbacks on our schools and and through various workshops, many students were able to express that they were glad to have this opportunity to voice their opinions. it felt very listened to rather than heard in conversations with district leaders and committees. So, a special thank you to all the adults that definitely

104took the time to make this event very um successful. Um this month is the month of June. So, I want to just congratulate all the seniors who will be graduating in about I think it's like three weeks. Um many or as some may know according to news sites in the western interstate interstate commission of higher education it is stated that across the c across the country this is a largest senior class of graduates with students and I know that in Greece the seniors are destined to go off and do amazing things that will positively impact our community our nation and our world. So congratulations on the completion of high school and I hope that your future continues to shine bright. And lastly, well second to lastly, I want to highlight highlight some of the great

105things that has happened for the student body in Greece this year. Um academically there's been notable rise in students dedication and positive work ethics across all levels whether it's elementary, middle and high school. Um, many students have been recognized for their achievements through honors like national honor and junior and national junior honor society, community awards, most inspiring student awards, Olympia's rise award recipients, and much much more. As a student, I definitely encourage our district to continue shifting its mindset from focusing on negative behaviors and strict discipline and towards celebrating the many positive students and the many positives that many students create every single day. Um this includes all the recognition all the recognition in um public conversations or even on social media where we're just expressing the positives that happen in our district. And while

106definitely solving problems and addressing behavior is necessary, I believe that stating starting with a positive mindset means a lot to students and reminds all of us that we're human or whe whether we're young or old and that growth often comes with mistakes and that understanding definitely creates a place of hope, trust, and a stronger community. And then I want to just thank you guys all for um amazing time. I definitely although I step away from school work or sleep, I definitely like Miss Terry Mallor definitely like coming to board meetings which is surprising because I am a student. So I definitely do like being here and even though today is probably my last meeting, I definitely had an amazing time with all of you. So thank you. Thank you, Silus. Board member comments, Mr. Butler.

107Um, I want to add my condolences to the Gleon family for the uh sudden and tragic death of their uh of their family member. Uh, and to everybody in the transportation department who's certainly feeling that really acutely. Um, I want to say congratulations uh to the students who are uh getting close to graduation. It's such an amazing and exciting time for them. Congratulations for the teachers and the staff, the support folks across the whole district and it really reminds us that it takes a district to graduate a child, right? So, uh, congratulations to everybody for making that happen. I want to say thank you to Miss Farah for her service on the board and and the willingness to to, uh, stand up and commit to serving your community. I want to say thanks to Silus.

108you know, to be the first of anything is quite a remarkable thing, and I'm pretty sure this isn't the last time you'll be the first at something. So, congratulations on all the great success that's coming to you. Uh, and lastly, I want to uh recognize uh my good friend Terry Malor. Um, Terry was my board mentor when I when I joined the board. She even uh talked talked me into I talked to me about I should say joining the board uh before I joined it and um and helped me really understand the role uh of of a board member and I uh really have appreciated that so much. Terry is somebody who's dedicated her life to education. Uh as you may know she was a career teacher in the district and uh she's dedicated her

109life to education to students and to her adopted hometown of of Greece. um she is a relentless supporter of students and all that they do and uh that she sets a bar that's really difficult for anyone else to meet in in that department. Um once a teacher always a teacher and I think that means she's shown all of us how to be a leader around this table. Um it's been said that she is a very kind person with uh deep empathy and it's true but she also has a wicked sense of humor that uh um that I I really enjoy. Um, she's a a theater person, a mom, a grandmother, and a friend, and I'm proud to call her that. So, thank you, Terry, for your service. Mr. Margorio. Thank you. Well, well, I want

110to say thank you to Silus for your service and uh while you were talking, I was looking out at your mom and seeing the very proud look on her face and with obvious for obvious reasons. So, congratulations. Thank you for for all you've done in uh and best wishes for all that's ahead of you. You're going to do great. Um I also want to say thank you to Terry U Missor. Uh thank you for all all your years of service. Um you've accomplished a lot. Congratulations on all of that. Um I think yeah, you've accomplished a lot. I think I will remember you most as this strong advocate for the arts and especially here in Greece. Um, you could count on Terry to be at at every every event and uh and really cheerleading our

111uh our our students and staff who who uh did so much in in that regard. Um, and I hope you'll stay involved. I'm sure I'm sure I'll see you there, but I I I I'm hoping I'll see you on stage at some point. So, I know we've had that that conversation. U but thank you. Uh I want to thank my my friend Megan Farah. Uh you have a have had a tireless commitment and passion uh for advocating for parents and families and I I really appreciate that and for teachers and staff members and especially for students. Um, you've got four of them in the district and it's it's it it you you wear it on your sleeve. It's a it's a it's a badge of honor and um it's been a huge commitment for you.

112I appreciate it. Thank you. Um I hope you too will stay involved. Um you've had a positive impact. Um the work doesn't stop. Uh but I do want to extend my congratulations to Jim, her husband. you get you get a lot of life back. So, congratulations. But thank you. Thank you all for your service. Um I do also want to extend my congratulations to Anna Maria Falzerano and Monica Seaman uh as they will join the board next month. I look forward to working with them. Um, and it's it's kind of neat and interesting that uh there have been some family connections, actually multiple family connections on this board uh with with some of them. So, it's it's um it's kind of neat. It it really is a small community. Um again, uh sympathies to um

113Mr. Gleason's family uh and and our and our team in transportation. Um, and congratulations to the senior class. Uh, I'm looking forward to the uh to the graduation ceremonies uh and moving up ceremonies as well. So, and happy happy summer after this to all. Thank you, Mr. Bongorio. Mr. Stzel. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I first wanted to extend my heart and prayers for the Gleon family and to our transportation folks that knew them so well. Um it's really tough to go through something like that and such a loss, you know, just hits home. So hearts and prayers are out there. Um just real quick, I wanted to give a shout out for Olympia again because I got to attend last week the um interior, you were you were with me. We got to do

114the uh the honors ceremony which was so cool um for the high school and the middle school. So kudos to Olympia on that. I want to start with um some congrats. I'm going to start with Silas. You know, when I think of you, Silus, I think of the a word comes to my mind and it's courage. And I I really you may be like, why why courage? When I was your age in high school, I didn't want to be seen. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I wanted to be left alone. I couldn't imagine being where you are now. And all I can think of is the bravery, the boldness, the courage, the um aspirations you have to go out there in the world and do amazing things. And I know, you know, this

115is just one of many experiences you are going to have when you leave here. And uh I'm really excited for you because I know I'm going to hear your name again, either on the radio or TV or the wherever. You will be around in Greece, you will be around the community and you will be doing amazing things. So, whatever that torch is that you're holding on to, what I call courage, keep lighting that that torch and keep moving forward cuz it's serving you well and it will serve you well even uh as you go forward. So, thank you for your service and everything you do. Yeah. I'm going to shift gears now to Terry. So Terry, you know, I I don't know how I could top any of the things that have already been said,

116but I I like to share personal stories. That's kind of how I resonate with people. And I want to say some of my first encounters with you was when I was speaking over there, which still terrifies me, but to this day, 3 minutes is just Yeah, it's a lot. But you know, there was one night where you were running the meeting for Sean. He was out and you know, I had said something. thing. I don't really remember what it was, but you stopped me and you said, "Hey, could you give me that information when you were done?" It's those little touches like that that show that you really do care about the people in the community, even if you don't agree with their point of view, which I really respect and admire. Additionally, when I

117had set up my town halls and I had asked board members to attend, uh, with the exception of Mark and Megan, and this is no knock on anyone else here, so don't take it that way, you you attended and you gave your input to the community members who were there. We had an open dialogue. I thought it was amazing. And then you when I eventually got elected onto the board, you became my my traininee, you know, like you you gave me you showed me the ropes in the time that we had together. And I truly appreciate it. And you know, it's funny is I can be on social media, let's say, in the middle of the night just scrolling for whatever reason. And all of a sudden, I see you in a picture at some

118event and I'm like, Terry's everywhere. How does she do this? I barely can do this. you know, I want to be at all the committees too, but I just can't do it. And you you do it all, which is um nothing short of astonishing and really amazing. So although you your journey here, you know, has come to a close, I always see as one door closing as another one opens. And so I know for a fact we're going to continue to see you at every function that's out there if you can make it. And I know that you're also going to go out there and do some amazing things. So I I'm looking forward to seeing what's next in your journey. So thank you for everything. Last but not least, my friend Megan. Um, and

119I I do mean that when I say that, you know, again, I'm going to share another story, which is there was a cold winter night that we had a parent exchange. It's a long time ago. And you walked up to me and you said, "I hear you want to run for the board." And that's what kicked off our friendship because before that I really didn't know much about any of you other than what I saw on YouTube or the one time I was convinced by Sean to come to a meeting and just see what it was like before I decided to dive into this journey. And so I really just want to say I appreciate the mentorship um the the personal talks everything that we have gone through on this crazy journey we call life

120here in Greece central. I see that you are an advocate first and foremost for families, children, safety, um you know, just seeing the best outcome possible in Greece and you may not have agreed with everybody here on the in this uh room and that's okay. You brought a unique perspective that other people may not have had and you stood up for pe what I consider the little guy or the underdog in many situations and I think um you know I will remember that and I know many here will too and I just want to extend my appreciation for you kind of like Terry you're everywhere as well but in different circles in terms of like politics and and things like that. So, I I know we're going to see you do great things as well.

121And um I'm also excited to see where your journey takes you. So, thank you for everything. Silus, again, I reiterate what others have said. Um, I like Sean was a little hesitant when I heard about having a student board representative, but um, it didn't take very long for me to realize that it was a very good thing. And Terry, you're the first one that ever suggested that I run for school board. This is when I was coming to meetings and I think it was more a threat than a a request. I'm not sure, but um it's anyway um enjoy your retirement, although I have a feeling that you're going to still be as active as you have ever been. And um Megan, I uh I want to thank you for thanking me when I spoke

122at residence forum. That that was nice. And uh and the other thing um you really have brought an energy to this board. Um always advocating for for the student, for students, for families, for community and the moral courage you had. And I remember a vote of one to eight when you were the only one that disagreed with the former superintendent's punishment of a student and made the a very very good case. So if I'm ever in trouble, I may have you represent me in court. But um I will miss you. And don't forget first meeting of every month is residents forum. Well, just in case just in case you have something to share. God bless you. Terry, I finally get to say something. It's been two hours. Two and a half. Take the hand. Well,

123finally no. Uh, first of all, my guy next door, thank you so much. I so thrilled I get to sit next to him and, you know, as a teacher to have a student with me has been fabulous and I wish you the best and keep in touch and keep going. Um, first the regular stuff because I've been to a few things. Um, I want to congratulate Greece Arcadia's music program. Um, for the third year in a row, they won the Rochester Broadway Theater League Stars of Tomorrow Musical of the Year. Um, which included um, all of Western New York, which is fabulous. And two of our students, Ian and Tessa, were selected to go to New York City as the best two performers in Western New York uh, for the Jimmy Awards. So, we'll be

124watching and hoping for them. Um yeah, I've been around and I've been to um the Olympia's National Junior Honor Society induction, the annual tenure celebration. Um I um went to the emergency showcase, the respond to emergency showcase. It was fabulous seeing kids doing CPR and being firefighters. And I'm a career educator and I couldn't have been happier watching those kids in action. Um, I got to go to the student summit and see the best of our students working together for the day. It was fabulous. Um, I also got today went to senior conference day at Olympia and any of my board members if you get a chance go and listen to students give you a summary of their education in Greece. It's a fabulous thing. Um, then I want to get into the whole board

125of education thing. Um, I want to thank the community for electing me for the past 12 years. Your trust has been very appreciated. I've learned that it's difficult being in public when you're a board member. And I am asked the most asked question. Do they teach cursive in school anymore? um uh which I have enjoyed tremendously because my granddaughter who's 13 when I showed her something in cur cursive she said what does that say? So that answered it right there. Um so I'm thankful for the community. I appreciate that. Um it's been an honor and a privilege to work with um things that have happened in Greece in the past 12 years like this building. Um, and I'm most proud of the fact that we have solar panels up here on this building, but not

126enough power to do electric buses, because wouldn't that be nice? Um, uh, fields, turf fields and lights. I've been hearing about that since I moved to Greece 30 years ago. So, that's kind of fun. The early learning center and community schools. I I am so excited. I was here at the beginning and watching it grow. Um, I'd like to thank the three superintendents I had the opportunity to work with. Um, I they've taught me a lot about as an educator. I never knew what they did other than given speeches. Um, I Well, really, do we see any more? No. Um, it was a privilege to get to know them and learn from them. Um, I would like to thank um my fellow board members. Do you know in the 12 years there have been 25

127of us at this table? I counted. Now, one of my issues is Sean would always ask me to mentor them. And now I'm starting to think, did I do something wrong? Because many of them only lasted a year, but for lots of interesting readers reasons. Um, a a special thank you to our district clerk and the past two district clerks I worked with, Lyn Armstrong and Deb Saboek. They have a tough job. First of all, they run the election. So, this year we had two. Um, they have to provide us with all our information. And just FYI, this week's board packet was 360 some odd pages that have to be put together. Get have all of us receive it by Friday and some of us actually get packets that come to our door. So, thank

128you. Thank you for all the work that you do. Um, finally, a little thank you to Sean. Um, he's taught me a lot about being a board member. Um, Robert's rules of order. Remember doing it in high school. Now, we have to do it all the time. It's kind of funny. Um, he also has spent a lot of time helping me with policies and understanding that there's that whole policy thing we have to follow and has become a great friend. First met him before I was on the board on a 911 call when he came to my house 11:00 at night. So, we've known each other for a while. Um, and finally, we all come with an agenda. We have to admit we have an agenda. Uh, mine were little things maybe like the name

129of the performing arts center, but the one thing I didn't accomplish and I'm gonna ask Romeo for help. The piano. It's on my board. Yeah, you say that and nothing has happened. I have move it up. I have I have a connection with someone at the Eastman School of Music and that's the kind of pianos they buy. So hopefully appreciate today. I appreciate everything and thank you all. It's been a pleasure working with all of you. [Applause] Vice President Farmer. Oh, Megan. Sorry, I missed you. I was going to do Terry before or you before Terry. That's okay. Either or. Um, I want to uh give our prayers and um to the Gleon family. what occurred overnight uh is unimaginable and our thoughts and prayers are with them. I am so super glad to hear

130about Maloney during our board meeting that he came through with flying colors. Um when one door closes, several others opens and I can't I'm going to continue to work on our advocacy and our veterans with our women. Uh it means something to me and I also want to um uh I usually mention the retirees. Thank you for everything that you guys do every single year. We're coming to the close of the year. There's been many retirees and I appreciate your service. Silus, thank you for being the first student board member ever. That there's a lot more to come and you have done so much. Um Terry, you are one of my mentors. Um and we had some great times. It was lovely getting together. We had a lot of great talks. Um you are truly

131going to be missed. You had a lot of years on the board. So, thank you so much for your service to the board cabinet. Most of you are all new. You've been promoted while I've been here at the board. So, congratulations as well. This is an a great thing for you guys as well. Jeremy, you as well. You have been um a rock in all of this. You champion for so many things for a great community and more achievement for students. Um and I appreciate you listening to all of us. Um, I would say Mark, but I'm going to turn this to Mayor. Mayor, really, you were the rock of all of this. It was not Mark. Thank you for keeping me sane. I promise it will only be down to one phone call a

132day, not two like it was. Um, good good luck with your Crosswaves uh nonprofit uh Butler. That's great. Thanks to hear about that. And oh my goodness, Tracy, you have from the beginning four years ago before I was even on the board, you were the only one that came out. You wanted to talk to us. You wanted to hear from parents. You wanted to get issues done. I appreciate your time with that. It's been instrumental. Sean, board president, um I appreciate you have taught us so much and I don't even know if you realize that. So, I appreciate everything that you have shown us here. Um, I'm sure we'll see more of that from you as well. Mary and Jordan, thank you for doing this. Being on the board of education is not always fun.

133I feel like sometimes you're studying for um the bar exam and you know, there's a lot to it with policy and procedure. Um, so I appreciate you guys taking on the role of this. I appreciate my time here. Thank you all uh for the service and for letting me be here. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Vice President Farmer. So, I'm going to start with you, Silas. When I would hear you speak, like right now at board comment, I'd sit here and say, "This kid is incredible. You're amazing. And I'm looking forward to all the rest of the beautiful things that are in store for you as you continue to grow." And you're a senior next year, right? Yeah. Terry, I I sit here and I say to myself, seven years ago, this is how

134long ago that we've been here. And I remember when we were both with our my grandson and your granddaughter and we saw each other in the eye store and it was this cute little thing and it it was it was nice seeing you out of this element even though we've been to breakfast or we've been to lunch with our families and I thank you for all your years of service as a teacher as a board member and I appreciate watching you and modeling so many things and listening to you say, "Okay, she did this. She did this. She did this." And I used to keep up and I'd say, "How do you get all these dates in?" Oh, I just look Okay. So, I'm still working on that. Megan, when I think about you the

135first time that I met you and and and how we talked and it it was just so meaningful to see you in that role and and just be so out there and transparent about what was happening and we talked and I think at that point we cemented our oursel to together as weird as that might be but we did in a moment of tension for you and your kids. I mean, it was during CO, so it was, you know, everything was crazy. Um, the one thing that I really admired is when you would congratulate every person that was retiring in our district. And I just found that so um meaningful that you would point out and name the names of the people who who had served our our district and our community and everybody who's

136graduating in summertime. It's It's been great and we'll see you in what, September. Thank you. I'm going to keep it short. Everybody else has said what they have said and I back up all of that. Thank you, Terry. Just so you know, next month we will be recognizing Ian Ian and Tessa for their they couldn't make it tonight. We were hoping to do it tonight with you here, but we couldn't do it tonight. So, I apologize for that. But if you want to come back next month, you're more than welcome. Watch it on YouTube. There you go. Um, so many things I want to I want to hit on. Um, Lori Manhart is our new board clerk. Um, she rockstarred the election. She did a fabulous job for coming in in January. You did an

137amazing job. We had a little bit of an issue with our one vendor that day and you handled it with grace and profession and you know we got through it that day and it was a lot of you know work on your part and the elections a lot of work and you did an amazing job. I just wanted to say that to you. You made it seamless and it was a lot of positive feedback from all of our election workers on how you ran things. So I just want to thank you for that. Um, like Terry said, we attended the responding to emergencies showcase and that is an amazing event with our community partners. Monroe Ambulance, all the fire departments were there, the police department was there. It's a it's a great event for our

138kids, but it's also a great event for the program. And to see these kids who a couple years ago wouldn't have known the first thing about what a fire hydrant was and now they're getting water out of a fire hydrant and putting into a truck is amazing. You know, doing CPR, I mean, you know, putting up ladders, putting out fires, breaching a door, and you know, really working on and if you're not familiar with breaching a door, it's not the easiest thing in the world. And these kids, I mean, you know, some smaller kids, they they did it and they worked hard and it was an amazing experience to see them do that. And I would encourage everybody next year if you're on the board or in the public and when the responding to emergency

139showcase comes up, I highly recommend you attend it because it really highlights what some of our career pathways look like and it's for me it's the satisfaction of seeing kind of the culmination of where our students are. um attended the tenure celebration a couple weeks ago and you know as a board member there's a lot of things I love and there are some things I don't but the tenure celebration is one of them um seeing people come into the district they come in as new teachers new administrators whatever position they're in and they achieve tenure which is quite the accomplishment the tenure achieving tenure today isn't what it was like 20 30 years ago it's a lot more rigorous there's a lot more evaluation there's a lot more involved in it. I mean, I think

140probably way back in the day, some people got tenure and it was just somebody signed a piece of paper and nobody had any idea what they did in the classroom. But today, it's a robust um evaluation process and all of these people got it. I was so happy to have them in our Greece Central family and hope they have long careers here in Greece. Um retirement celebration next week. A couple of my colleagues said on the retirements of you know we have so many amazing people that work in this district and it's also one of my favorite events in the district to thank people for what this you know the service they've given to this community our students our families it's truly a great event and it's a and it's a reward at the end

141of a long career and every career there's good days and bad days some days you love work some days you absolutely hate work and retirement is the culmination of that and it's it's a true honor and I want to thank all our retirees whether they're going be at the celebration next week or not. Um, I want to thank them for their service to this community. Weapons detection. Um, I want to give a shout out to Mr. Flleming. Um, he's been a another rock star when it comes to this, um, how the weapons detection system rolled out. Couple kinks at Arcadia when it first came out, kink today, you know, or yesterday at Olympia and he his leadership and skill have got it figured out. I've heard nothing but good things. I haven't I mean, normally

142I get complaints about that. that it's raining today. Um, but I haven't gotten one complaint about the weapons detection systems. I mean, parents are supportive. They feel their kids are safer. I was at Olympia today, I had a bunch of kids tell me they feel way better within the system. And the staff is ecstatic. I mean, the staff is like, like Mr. Fleming said, at Olympia today, they're like, "Cell phones aren't an issue anymore." It's it's actually it's actually amazing. So, I want to thank him for his leadership and guidance. Look forward to how it rolls out. I thank my colleagues on the board of education. And it wasn't an easy decision to make to go with weapons weapons detection systems. We were the first school district in the county to do it. And I

143think it it speaks volumes to this board and our leadership. Um senior conferences. I was lucky enough to attend senior conferences today at Greece Olympia and I had the privilege of sitting with five absolutely amazing students. Simon, Kareem, Merissa, Blessed and Hannah. And all five students, very different backgrounds, very different stories. They're all graduating. It's kind of like it was, you know, one of them really was Hannah Rostrom. She's actually going to be speaking at graduation in Olympia. She's an amazing young woman. I mean, you hear her story, things she's went through, and for her to she presented like she was 30 getting a job as a CEO at a Fortune 500 company. I mean, she was absolutely I mean, I was awed. There's not many people that awe me and she aed me. And

144then I was thinking back as a board member, I had a part in this. All five of these kids today, we had a part in. And I look at that as we head into graduation. And probably graduation for me is the favorite event we do as a board and as a school district because graduation is the culmination, you know, from kind. And for some of us that have been around probably too long, these kids weren't in school when I started on this board of education. So to see them now after all these years coming through and graduating, it's so rewarding because some of them it's a struggle, some of them it's a real struggle, but they get there. And it's probably one of that when you see the look in the families and how happy

145and excited families are, it's like, yep, there's a lot of Tuesdays. You know, I think about hanging myself in my basement. But it's rewarding at the end of the day because we get to that point of these kids are amazing. And you know, not everybody's going to have a hundred, but not everybody's going to have 50, but they work hard to get there. And I think it's super important that we recognize them and we appreciate the work we do as a board of education, as a superintendent, a superintendent's cabinet, all of our staff, all of our employees, our bus drivers, our security, our food service workers, everybody plays a part in getting them there. And I think it's super important that we realize that and everybody takes a step back and thinks about that because

146I don't think anybody ever really thinks about it truly. So I'd like everybody just to take a minute to think about that. This is our last meeting of the 2425 school year. Next meetings will start the 2526 school year and it'll be July 15th. Summer's a time to relax, wind down, recharge because we gear right back up in August and we're full boore in August and it'll go all the way to this time next year. So, I want to thank everyone. I want to congratulate again in my finishing remarks. Silus, you don't never cease to amaze me. Megan, it's been a true pleasure to work with you. Terry, the friendship. I can't say anything more than that. And with that, I need a motion to adjourn. And Terry, it's on you. Make a motion to

147adjourn this meeting. Is there a second? Second. I'm going to give it to Megan because it's her last meeting. With that, all those in favor? All right. Awesome. Thank you, everyone. Oh, settle down.